A few November snowflakes and the hits on my all-time most-read post start climbing the “Most Read This Week” list. Chance of Snow is from 2011. You think it would have melted entirely from view by now. But no – 12 hits in the last two hours for a grand total of 12,052 to date. Must be those wishful thinking,…
Muriel Rukeyser wrote this in 1968. Read it and tell me it doesn’t feel like she is writing for this moment in history. How many mornings recently have you been “more or less insane” as the news pours out of “various devices”? Poem (I lived in the first century of world wars) I lived in the first century of world…
Imagine being so consumed with racial hatred that you travel all the way from Maryland specifically on a mission to kill black people. This is what seems to have happened last Monday night when Timothy Caughman suffered a brutal sword attack from a complete stranger apparently intent on targeting black men in New York City. Caughman, who was 66 and lived…
Near the beginning of George Orwell’s 1984 our hero Winston Smith attends a rally at the Ministry of Truth where he works in the Records Department. It’s the daily ritual two-minute hate – a routine emotional release designed to keep everyone full of fear and enraged at the enemies of the state. Before the Hate had proceeded for thirty seconds,…
I never met Joe Bower but it seemed easy to imagine knowing him. He was one of those people you meet online who exude warmth and seem larger than life. When Joe burst into the Twitterspere in 2009 it was like a blast of fresh air. He was ready to take on the world and he generated an energy and…
Common Sense Media announced a new report, based on a survey with 2600 tweens and teens, that they say depicts the current state of media usage in the United States. Among their findings are several which are likely troubling to one or another of us: “Low-income kids lack access. Children growing up in lower-income homes are far less likely to…
If you’re reading this online then you are engaged in social media. You are consuming. I’ve been thinking about education and social media not so much as an option but as an opportunity and an obligation – something we owe ourselves as learners and something we owe our students as teachers. We all know that we live an era of…
Tool #1: Twitter With so much out there it’s hard to know where to begin. But Twitter is by far the number one online professional growth tool for educators. It’s the link and the glue that connects and brings colleagues and our collective knowledge together. While others may use Twitter for celebrity gossip, news updates, relentless self-promotion* and recreational outrage…
This post inspired by the #blimage* invitational series. Take a look at this picture and what do you see? That wall – at least on the right – has a serious case of efflorescence – the salty, crystalline eruption that commonly disfigures porous brickwork exposed to damp. On the left the wall seems composed of old bricks of diverse origins…
Finally – at long last – the old desks were taken to the basement for storage. There they sat for two decades -surplus to requirements, replaced by moulded plastic, steel and aluminum – gathering dust and shedding memories. The lidded oak desks from the third form room across from the hallway pressed against the ones with the inkwells on the…
There are lots of reasons not to like Facebook and I respect all those many people for whom it is just not their cup of tea. But there is one thing that Facebook is really good for and for which, as yet at least, there is no better alternative. And that’s doing a little institutional bragging – sharing, show-and-tell or…
Last night’s forum was a discussion of digital technology and social media and their impact on learning and education. Thank you parents, students and faculty for joining the discussion. There’s lots more learning and thinking to do and I look forward to the on-going exploration and conversation. We will be actively planning ways to open the discussion to the whole…
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!” (Othello Act II.iii.262-265). Cassio only had his own foolishness and the treachery of Iago to deal with. He didn’t have to contend with social media and the digital dossier. Iago – who elsewhere…
Drowning in data overload? Drenched from drinking from the fire-hose of information? Help is at hand: the Guardian now has a new Data Blog for data journalism and visualization. And mapping every city, every town block by block here is a searchable census analysis via the NYTimes. Check out your neighborhood. And just take a look at this graphic of…
I check my Twitter feed first thing. It’s an early morning routine that helps give me a quick scan of the world and of the edusphere in particular. Today, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-free Kids Act into law. Child nutrition and school lunch are hot topics and the PBS NewsHour has taken notice. I follow the NewsHour so I…